Modern surgical procedures utilize improved accuracy to guarantee a minimally invasive operation, such that the patient is able to quickly recover from surgery. Therefore, surgical procedure are used that incur a minimal injury to the patient's body. To avoid injuring the patient's body during a surgical operation, the accuracy of the surgery is enhanced, and the surgery itself is performed so as to minimize entry into the body (which may not allow the surgeon to directly view the surgical field). In this scenario, it is nowadays common to use a reference element or reference array to provide a surgeon and/or a navigation system some points of orientation in the surgical field. To maintain the accuracy and the minimally invasive surgical technique, the reference element or reference array cannot be shifted, rotated or inaccurately located during surgery. Improperly locating the reference element or reference array may direct the surgeon away from the actual situation in the surgical field and can cause surgical errors.
Several different attachment methods are described in the prior art. In general, there are two groups of methods. One of these groups is directed to a bone attachment method according to which a bone is penetrated and a part of the fixing device is introduced into the bone. This group incurs the drawback that it is necessary to penetrate and thus injure a patient's body. In the other group, it is necessary to open a wide portal through the soft-tissue of a patient, in order to introduce a fixing device which needs significant space in order to enter and be fixed to a patient's bone. A list of publications directed to these two groups of methods is listed below.
6,860,883External Fixation Apparatus and Method6,835,197Bone Fixation System6,830,571Contourable Spinal Staple with Centralized and UnilateralProngs6,790,234Reverse Shoulder Prosthesis System6,730,086Repositioning Instrument to Fixate Bone-fractures6,689,134Longitudinal Plate Assembly Having an Adjustable Length6,685,708Staples for Bone Fixation6,685,706Proximal Anchors for Bone Fixation System6,632,224Bone Fixation System6,540,770Reversible Fixation Device for Securing an Implant in Bone6,461,358Device for the External Fixation of Bones Fractures, inParticular Ankle Fractures6,447,517Instrument for Inserting Graft Fixation Device6,391,030Surgical Cable System and Method6,364,884Method of Securing a Graft Using a Graft Fixation Device6,328,758Suture Anchor with Reversible Expansion6,206,826Devices and Methods for Percutaneous Surgery6,179,840Graft Fixation Device and Method6,102,912Vertebral Rod of Constant Section for Spinal OsteosynthesisInstrumentations5,827,286Incrementally Adjustable Tibial Osteotomy Fixation Deviceand Method5,674,221External Fixator with Improved Clamp and Methods for Use5,569,303Apparatus and Method for Attaching an Object to Bone5,536,271Patella Reaming System5,423,821Sternal Closure Device5,133,720Surgical Drill Guide and Retractor5,026,372Fixation Device for the External Adjusting of Bone Fragments4,959,065Bone Plate with Positioning Member4,944,743Spinal Fixation Device4,655,776Prostheses for Ossicular Reconstruction4,587,916Device for Fixing the Wish-bone of the Sail-board to the Mastin a Fast and Rigid Manner4,414,967Internal Fixation of Bone, Tendon, and Ligaments4,252,121Separating Device3,987,500Surgically Implantable Total Ankle Prosthesis